One Planet Education Network (OPEN) and OPEN Helium
IoT Sensor Network Systems and Related Curricula Development To Expand Helium Blockchain Network Through OPEN's Global Network of Schools & Sustainable Community Programs
Elevator Pitch:
OPEN has been a global education technology partner of Helium for over two years, and we believe it has been a mutually beneficial partnership. OPEN aspires to become the lead global education partner of Helium and advance the LoRaWAN, 5G and other future networks of Helium, integrating Helium as the network backbone of OPEN's global education technology solutions.
The expansion and extension of the Helium network for education begins with the development and utilization by our schools of IoT curricula to teach the teachers and students about sensors that connect to the network, how to assemble, program, 3D print enclosures and deploy in the fields and cities where they reside. Our courses are designed to demonstrate the value and importance of IoT, and impart data analytics knowledge to students across our 10 countries. Our off-the-shelf and DIY IoT LoRaWAN sensors we sell to the schools, farmers, Ministries of Agriculture/ Environment, along with the hotspots (LoRaWAN gateways) generate data from those school gardens/hydroponic systems, small holder farms and Ministry clients/partners research plots.
Without the courses that teach students how to build and program DIY and how to deploy those DIY and off-the-shelf sensors, learn about the network gear and Helium Blockchain backbone networks, and how to interpret the sensor data emanating from their school gardens, which traverse Helium networks to display on their Ubidots data dashboards, schools, ministries and other related users will not seek the solution and utilize the Helium network. It is an end-to-end solution we are providing with our courses, our equipment and software sales from Helium partners (RAK, Seeed Studio and Ubidots).
This all runs across Helium networks (hotspots) to and from and in between the schools and farms and Ministries, now in 3 countries, soon to be 10 in 2022 if all goes according to our sales projections. All will be encompassed in a highly customizable Moodle Learning Management System (LMS), which through this grant work we will be setting up and modifying to handle all our new IoT curricula/courses, and Hardshare sensor arrays, and feeds from our sensors and Helium networks we are deploying. The ease of adding all these courses and other learning applications to the system will allow us to support hundreds of classrooms and new classes of users going forward. This grant will help get this done faster and more efficiently and effectively with our various OPEN teams working in tandem with these set milestone and deliverable deadlines.
This DeWi funded work will lay a strong foundation for us and show the value of our IoT solutions to our customer base. This will in turn result in the growth of the Helium network, increase data traffic through hundreds and ultimately thousands of sensor end devices to these customers, all through the catalyst of current and forthcoming IoT education applications and our Moodle LMS.
As new schools and countries come online there will be ongoing opportunities for substantial PR, from developing nations, our UN, Government Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Environment, Forestry, Telecom partners. Many use cases and academic journal articles will be written as well, further enhancing the Helium Network story, and value to societies and the future generation workforce. This is already beginning with our education workshops with STEM kits with special needs schools in Nigeria – see TV press on OPEN homepage – link below, as well as PR from RAK-Wireless also on the homepage of OPEN.
Time is critical for OPEN teams racing to ready the IoT technologies, related education programs, and business development assignments outlined below, and to leverage our large-scale international sustainable community development and school STEM education opportunities that lie before us. For these and other related IoT education and business opportunities, OPEN has assembled a world class development team, a multi-country mix of government and NGO partners, and strategic business partners including Helium, RAKwireless, Seeed Studio, Ubidots, IBM Weather Computing (EIS), IBM Edge AI/ML, and Esri GIS Mapping Company.
OPEN creates and manages STEM Project-Based Learning (PBL) programs that focus on local sustainable community development. Participating primary-secondary (K-12) schools, partner universities, ministries, NGOs, OPEN's interdisciplinary teams, and our IoT and related technology partners work together within developing countries and underserved communities, and link them across borders to collectively address common real-world community development challenges – such as food insecurity, water shortages/conservation, and ecosystem restoration efforts.
OPEN project manages small to large-scale projects, develops customized curricula, integrates IoT and other technologies, and offers its courses and collaborative facilities via one centralized online platform - the OPEN Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). OPEN and its education and tech partner teams offer schools ongoing teacher Professional Development (PD), and international distance learning events, and Women in Sci-Tech interview series and more.
OPEN currently has several county (akin to States in USA) and countrywide expansion projects pending in the DR Congo, Jamaica, Kenya, Hawaii, and Liberia. These projects are primarily focused on sustainable agriculture, forestry, and environment. Beginning sometime by the end of first quarter to middle second quarter 2022, we intend to deliver proposals for large-scale project funding for IoT Networks in partnership with Agriculture/ Forestry/Environment/Education Ministries in the developing countries.
Bungoma County, Kenya alone would represent a network of approximately 3,500 IoT sensors deployed on 100 schools and 100 farms agriculture research plots securely connected to cloud services by the Helium blockchain network. This would allow us to not only serve schools and expand our school network in these countries, but also to deliver Helium and partner IoT networks to the broader communities there, initially smallholder farmers.
Several small-scale IoT networks with Helium and related IoT partners are now in-place and are being tested in Southern France, Sydney, Australia, and New York City Schools, and soon also in an Australia Aboriginal community school.
These projects and related support work, curricula, and training programs currently in-process for supporting and managing these small scale clients in the coming months and years will be the foundation and template for our larger scale projects in Kenya, Liberia, the DRC, and Jamaica. Going forward in 2022 in Jamaica, in our above-listed countries in Africa, and Hawaii, this will initially include some commercial farms – for agriculture food crop and livestock monitoring, but also forestry, tree plantations, water and irrigation systems monitoring, security, air quality and climate change research applications.
As noted, in addition to Helium, other OPEN global partners now include RAKwireless, Ubidots sensor dashboard company, Seeed Studio, IBM Weather Computing (EIS), IBM Open Horizons AI/ML Edge Computing, and Esri GIS mapping companies.
Curricula and instructional videos for our OPEN-RAK STEM Lab IoT sensor kits are continuing to be developed. Focusing on environmental sensors (air quality, air temp, humidity, barometric pressure – weather stations for school gardens and local farms as well as city schools for air pollution monitoring). Our training and professional development workshops with teachers of special education schools for their students with learning disabilities – five schools in Abuja, Nigeria was a huge success. Please watch the short summary Nigeria TV news segment near the top of the OPEN homepage for teacher testimonials and closing ceremonies with US Embassy and Nigerian Education officials - https://www.oneplaneteducation.com
These OPEN-RAK STEM IoT DIY kits have also arrived at our NY City schools and soon to our Australia schools. There is growing demand for them in Hawaii schools, South Carolina, Indiana, a STEM Summer Camp in New York, and Jamaica.
These initial and forthcoming STEM IoT Sensor Kit instructional videos and curricula will also need to be further developed and along with associated curricula applications and all toi be integrated into our OPEN Moodle LMS for market readiness and teacher easy access in remote regions of developing countries. This is getting underway and will be part of the support this grant could provide.
This month curricula and instructional videos for our OPEN-RAK STEM Lab IoT sensor kits are being developed, with some beta testing coming up with teachers of special education schools for their students with learning disabilities – five schools in Abuja, Nigeria. These OPEN-RAK STEM IoT DIY kits have just been delivered to Nigeria for that project, and soon to Australia and New York City schools.
These initial and forthcoming STEM IoT Sensor Kit instructional videos and curricula will also need to be integrated into our OPEN Moodle LMS for market readiness and teacher easy access in remote regions of developing countries.
We already have market expansion opportunities for our OPEN-RAK STEM IoT Sensor kits and network services in Hawaii, NYC, Indiana, Australia, Jamaica, South Carolina, Colombia, and Trinidad (initially schools, but in some cases both schools and farm applications). These are early in the pipeline, but which we intend to close in each of those markets by the late spring/summer of 2022, as the demand for these kits and related networks are rising, in tandem with our off-the-shelf IoT sensor solutions provided by Seeed Studio.
In NYC District 10 and District 11 alone we are targeting approximately 120 schools with 8 DIY Kits/school, so 960 or more OPEN-RAK STEM Kits (which can produce 1,920 sensors), and would be connected by approximately 120 RAK Lite hotspots. In South Carolina, there would be another 120 or so schools that our sales team there would be targeting. Indiana, initially 30 schools for 2022 (out of 1,925 schools statewide), and Jamaica at the outset five schools, but through 4H and the Ministry of Agriculture there, possibly another 50 schools there in 2022-2023. Just in – a Native Hawaiian Cultural organization is interested in tracking underground water to fill an aquifer so they are looking to us for water flow sensors and to also gift OPEN-RAK STEM DIY sensor kits to local schools that visit as well. And an opportunity just surfaced to make a presentation of our STEM sensor products and services to Hawaii Dept. of Education.
For those schools who cannot initially obtain sensors and our STEM sensor kits with this grant support we will be offering a wonderful alternative to teach IoT sensor programming initially to teachers and students in schools worldwide with our Hardshare sensor array systems. This will give us a unique education service offering and this too needs to be integrated into our Moodle and adhere to the UDL methodology. This will further promote our OPEN-Helium networks and partnerships as many schools will ultimately want to obtain, deploy and network their own sensors for further studies on these topics and for students to become familiar and fluent in data analytics.
OPEN fully adheres to the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and recently, through its partner country of DR Congo, was the recipient of an award by the UN's International Telecom Union Development Bureau (ITU-D) for Digital (Learning) Transformation Centers (DTCs) there. OPEN and partner school RSETF was also awarded a US Embassy of Nigeria grant to test its new OPEN-RAK STEM DIY sensor kits with special education teachers from five schools in Abuja, Nigeria targeting students with a wide variety of disabilities.
Project Outline
For OPEN to be solidly positioned for the smaller and larger education and now commercial farm network expansion projects in the next two-to-three months, we need short-term financial assistance to advance our technology platforms, curricula and business development support services for both schools, as well as the large scale county or countrywide projects in the works.
A grant from Decentralized Wireless Alliance to support our team of dedicated professionals will expedite and ensure the delivery of these various elements of the OPEN and Helium network expansions, and to meet the growing demand for our products and services now across 15 countries, and counting. Your support will allow OPEN to further customize and advance the curriculum as it relates to our current installed base of IoT deployments in Australia, NYC, and France. It will help fast forward our pending large scale Africa, Caribbean and new Hawaii projects. Finally it will allow us to take greater advantage of our new market expansion and business development opportunities arising from the recent promising launch of our new STEM Lab DIY sensor school kits, helping increase worldwide school sales and thus OPEN-Helium school network deployments.
By supporting the completion of in process programs/curricula, and our related technology education project deliverables (e.g., integrating the student programming services offered though an OPEN-Hardshare partnership), and successfully bundling all under the one online OPEN LMS, we will further position ourselves and Helium to rapidly and successfully grow the Helium IoT network through resultant LoRaWAN and IoT sensor deployments in schools, farms, forests, waterways, and communities worldwide. All these IoT network expansion projects will also be a seedbed for the upcoming 5G network of Helium.
I.Support technical team members developing K-12 (primary-secondary level) curricula (map new IoT curricula and services to UDL framework); develop new basic IoT course on data analytics, updated OPEN's foundational education programs on sustainable agriculture and align with new IoT curricula where necessary
Heather Cowap, M.S. – Course Development & PD/Training Program Manager, OPEN
OPEN is committed to using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as the curriculum design framework for all of its sustainable community-centered education technology projects and curriculum delivered through the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) – inclusive of all students and the best means for them to access materials to learn and succeed. In service of this goal, all curriculum provided by OPEN will provide multiple means of representation of the concepts and provide clear scaffolding for skills needed to succeed and achieve the stated goals of every course and project OPEN supplies to its member schools, farms, as well as government and NGO organizations.
This requires that curriculum be provided in a clearly written and accessible format, have some initial supporting audio and video instructional material, and provide students and teachers with supporting graphic organizers, clear checklists, and other materials that can be accessed with and without digital access. The current plan for developing these materials over the coming four months is as follows:
IoT Sensor, Networks, and Data Analytics Curricula: Coordinate and support our technical team members in developing curriculum for building IoT sensors, programming sensors and instructing students/teachers on data analysis, management and collection as a part of the sensor/sustainable agriculture school and community collaborations underway. We anticipate these offerings will be of great interest to both current and new OPEN partners and member schools.
This will require video scripting, editing, re-takes, additional information clips, and related curricula support materials provided in both ePub (for accessibility) and PDF versions. Heather will also offer instructional guidance for contributing experts to ensure that UDL practices are being used in designing, recording and writing the materials to be provided to both teachers and students, ministry officials and other OPEN partners through OPEN's Moodle LMS site. The OPEN Moodle LMS is where all of our courses and materials and service offerings including IoT dashboards and Hardshare programming services all come together and reside online.
In addition, since our OPEN partners are working with students of a wide range of abilities, materials for both introductory and advanced applications need to be integrated into the curriculum. Our model follows that of the "Open Honors" philosophy, where students can choose a range of challenging material to meet their interests, (in a decision tree type of format) thereby allowing them to dive into deeper learning opportunities and provide their teachers with more challenging materials to use as they deem appropriate.
Sustainable Agriculture Project Curriculum Integrated With A Wide Variety of IoT Sensors the will run on Helium Networks: This project is currently being reorganized to facilitate teacher access to the various stages of sustainable agriculture field preparation and management in a clearer manner, and there may be additional new UDL resources developed to improve accessibility to this project by teachers, students and soon farmers for our scaling projects.
In these revised sustainable agriculture instruction books we will focus on plot preparation, composting practices, cover crops, intercropping, drainage and water storage. For teachers new to agriculture education, these instructions will be supported with background lessons on soil, water, agriculture and scientific method for research, and Neem lab organic pesticides set up.
Heather will link related sensor kit instructional videos and curricula working with our OPEN-RAK development teams and revised Sustainable Ag curricula (these two elements also includes OPEN Team Members George Newman and Ellen Baldwin – see below).
This agriculture education-related project/curricula is a complementary sustainable community development real-world based program that ties directly to the IoT Sensor and Data Analytics curriculum, and concurrently positions our solution for success for large-scale regional and countrywide projects in DR Congo, Jamaica, Liberia, Kenya, and NYC schools to start.
II.Complete Hardshare Sensor Array Design and Development for OPEN Education Applications and Integration into OPEN Moodle LMS
Scott C. Livingston, PhD, Software Developer and Founder & CEO, rerobots
Two barriers to any education program involving hardware are (1) acquiring enough hardware and (2) scheduling access such that all students have sufficient opportunity to learn. Hardshare provides a way to overcome both of these by making IoT devices available for remote access in ready-to-use development environments. Access is managed by grouping common devices and provisioning time windows during which a student gets exclusive use of a device. Hardshare previously supported development on the Helium network by hosting several Discovery Boards during the #IoTforGood contest last year (https://www.hackster.io/contests/IoTforGood). This enabled contest participation from areas outside range of a Helium hotspot, including rural Texas, India, and southeast Asia.
Hardshare enhances and accelerates OPEN by enabling regional schools to share hardware resources internally and by allowing students to develop on a great variety of sensors and LoRaWAN devices, even when their school has few kits. Concretely, the plan during the next four months is as follows:
Integrate hardshare IoT "sandboxes" into the OPEN Moodle: The hardshare client is open source (https://github.com/rerobots/hardshare). Users typically access it via a Web-based sandbox that presents the development board with a camera stream, code editor, and terminal. This is backed by an image that already has necessary toolchains installed, enabling each student to immediately build and flash their code. Sandboxes used during the #IoTforGood contest were hosted on https://rerobots.net/. To provide the essential self-contained learning experience for students with OPEN, new sandbox apps will be developed and integrated into the OPEN Moodle.
Assemble arrays of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and each type of Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors: Hardshare integration with the OPEN Moodle is only useful if there are devices that can be provisioned by it. Thus, an array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and Seeed SenseCAP sensors will be built and presented to students through the OPEN Moodle, alongside their other course materials. The array will require cameras for video streaming, USB hubs, and a host computer where the hardshare client software will be installed. This array will be the largest and most diverse IoT "device cloud", to the best of the authors' knowledge. The construction details with step-by-step instructions will be recorded and released as open source/open access to facilitate reproduction by schools who want to share their own LoRaWAN hardware.
Develop programming lessons for students to use the sensor array: The final part of making LoRaWAN development kits available in the OPEN Moodle is to write lessons that introduce students to programming. Lessons will be written to target children with little or no prior programming experience. Target technical level will be such that, after completing the lessons, students will be ready to try tutorials in the Helium documentation, for example,[ https://docs.helium.com/use-the-network/devices/development/rakwireless/wisblock-4631/platformio/
III. OPEN Moodle and Project Administrative
George Newman, CEO will manage all above team members and delivery schedules/timelines for this project. Newman will Project Manage all elements of OPEN’s current and future program and technology development work as it relates to this proposal deliverables and milestones.
During this timeframe, Newman and Ellen Baldwin will manage the team for all the deliverables set forth below under the two milestones and make sure we complete all assignments on time. OPEN Moodle Content and Administrative systems to make it ready for large-scale school and sustainable community development network applications all of which will include the strategic Helium Blockchain Network component.
Roadmap:
Milestone + Date
Deliverable
Summary
Cost
MS1, Jan 30
Deliverables # 1-6 Outlined Below
Curricula STEM Kits (assembly), Integration hardshare sandbox into Moodle, Curricula STEM Kits (programming), Moodle Integration of STEM Kits (links to), Data Analytics Course Phase-1 (draft), Integration hardshare admin. into Moodle
$25,000 USD
MS2, Mar 31 2022
Deliverables # 1-9 Outlined Below
Curricula for STEM kits - Phase II programming,Moodle integration of STEM kit curricula, Integration hardshare admin into Moodle LMS, integration of code editor, Progress report on OPEN’s monthly activities, Proposals up ladder toward funding sources governments’ review to submissions, Progress reports on business development opportunities, Report on Moodle Course updates
$25,000 USD
(Milestones 2) Finish By Feb 28th, 2022 - $25,000
# 1 Deliverable
Curricula for OPEN STEM kits, phase 1 Assembly
Summary
Oversight and alignment with school standards and UDL for Nigeria Project Special Needs Program, both instructional videos and curricula (sample instructional video and curricula for validation)
# 2 Deliverable
Integration of a hardshare sandbox into OPEN Moodle
Summary
Write template code for integrating hardshare sandboxes into OPEN Moodle. This sandbox will have a terminal, single-file code editor, and "build & flash" button, and it will be connected to a single WisBlock with GPS module attached.
Will Be Finished By February 28, 2022
# 3 Deliverable
Curricula for OPEN STEM kits, phase 2 Programming
Summary
Integrate base STEM Kits curricula and instructional videos into the OPEN Moodle architecture, and be able to monitor and interact with teachers and their students (links to Moodle section)
# 4 Deliverable
Moodle Integration of OPEN STEM kit curricula (links to Moodle section)
Summary
Added programming of OPEN Kit sensor videos, alpha version
# 5 Deliverable
Data Analytic Course, phase 1 (draft submission)
Summary
Begin data analytics initial introductory curricula (drafts/link)
# 6 Deliverable
Integration of hardshare administration into OPEN Moodle; integration of multi-file code editor based sandboxes
Summary
Integrate administrative controls of hardshare into OPEN Moodle, so teachers will be able to control students' access to devices from within Moodle (without going to separate website). Teachers will be able to create and modify sandboxes by adding example code and installing more software packages. Also, the sandbox integration of the previous milestone will be generalized to support multiple files conveniently, either by embedding a rich IDE like VS Code or by building a simpler IDE that fits better in Moodle.
END OF FIRST MILESTONE – END OF FEBRUARY
(Milestones 2) Finish By March 30th, 2022 - $25,000
# 1 Deliverable
Data Analytic Course, phase 2 (finished course materials)
Summary
Higher level, advanced applications curricula for data analytics.
# 2 Deliverable
Moodle Integration of Data Analytic Course. (link to course in Moodle)
Summary
Data Analytic Course integrate into the OPEN Moodle Architecture, and be able to interact with teachers and their students
Hydroponic curricula relating to sensor data integration and data analysis
# 5 Deliverable
Moodle Integration (link)
Summary
Integrate revised sustainable agriculture and hydroponic curricula information within OPEN Moodle
# 6 Deliverable
UDL pedagogy alignment of all offerings
Summary
For all OPEN offerings UDL pedagogy alignments
# 7 Deliverable
Array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors, accessible within OPEN Moodle (link)
Summary
Assemble small (approximately 5 boards) array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits. Demonstrate access to devices in array via OPEN Moodle integration. Get feedback from DeWi, other stakeholders about user experience of this array + OPEN Moodle + hardshare stack. Apply feedback from small array. Build larger array with at least 3 types of Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors. Demonstrate access to devices in array via OPEN Moodle integration.
# 8 Deliverable
Lessons for students learning on the sensor array and for teachers managing it (materials and links possibly too)
Summary
Iterate on drafts of lessons for students to use the sensor array. Get feedback from DeWi, other stakeholders. Conclude with ready-for-publication lessons for students and onboarding materials for teachers.
# 9 Deliverable
Evaluate and report on new OPEN Moodle and course updates, and issues. (link)
Summary
Fine tune of OPEN Moodle Administrative roles and OPEN customization/branding.
END OF SECOND MILESTONE – END OF MARCH
$25,000
Team Bios
George Newman (CEO) is founder and CEO of One Planet Education Network, LLC (OPEN), a mission-driven social enterprise that develops STEM+ Project-Based Learning that joins together students and their underserved communities around the world offering community-based programs, supporting technologies and digital literacy training services. Newman has banded together a world-class team of educators, education technology consultants, and international technology organizations concentrating our collective talents to develop education programs
that focus on sustainable community development and the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our current programs key on eliminating hunger (increasing food security through regenerative agriculture programs and student research), and combating climate change through more sustainable farming practices, and the application of data-driven smart farming network systems.
Ellen Baldwin (VP Operations & Finance) manages OPEN's financial and budgetary requirements for its business, while continuing to assist in analyzing the company's overall strategic business planning. Ms. Baldwin also researches new technology applications and supports OPEN's OPEN's LMS, Esri GIS, Cloud, and general operations management. Ms. Baldwin has over 15 years of experience in the private and public accounting, strategic management research, information systems, and small business management.
Heather Cowap, MS, MEd has spent the last 15 years in the high school science classroom working with multiple grade levels and subject areas. Inspired by the goal of enticing students to be motivated and engaged in content, Heather has used Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a pedagogical structure to find and implement a number of ways for students to have choice in demonstrating knowledge of content. UDL encourages them to select from a wide variety of both technical tools and alternative ways of expression. She discovered that using technology in the classroom increased students' mastery in learning and increased their engagement in the topics covered. Discovering the need to help students manage their choices and learning group goals, Heather began using Scrum, an Agile method of project management.
Scott C. Livingston, PhD Before going to Caltech, Scott worked in a lab with bats where he designed electronics for studying echolocation beams. At Caltech and afterwards, Scott conducted research in formal methods for robotics. Realizing the potential of making these methods widely available, Scott changed focus to building tools for education and industry. This work facilitates others' work on hardware-oriented problems by (1) lowering upfront costs of using hardware and (2) accelerating progress by enabling agile development. In the past year, Scott has worked with educators at US schools and co-working centers to enable remote students to program robots and LoRaWAN devices.
Project
One Planet Education Network (OPEN) and OPEN Helium
IoT Sensor Network Systems and Related Curricula Development To Expand Helium Blockchain Network Through OPEN's Global Network of Schools & Sustainable Community Programs
Elevator Pitch:
OPEN has been a global education technology partner of Helium for over two years, and we believe it has been a mutually beneficial partnership. OPEN aspires to become the lead global education partner of Helium and advance the LoRaWAN, 5G and other future networks of Helium, integrating Helium as the network backbone of OPEN's global education technology solutions.
The expansion and extension of the Helium network for education begins with the development and utilization by our schools of IoT curricula to teach the teachers and students about sensors that connect to the network, how to assemble, program, 3D print enclosures and deploy in the fields and cities where they reside. Our courses are designed to demonstrate the value and importance of IoT, and impart data analytics knowledge to students across our 10 countries. Our off-the-shelf and DIY IoT LoRaWAN sensors we sell to the schools, farmers, Ministries of Agriculture/ Environment, along with the hotspots (LoRaWAN gateways) generate data from those school gardens/hydroponic systems, small holder farms and Ministry clients/partners research plots.
Without the courses that teach students how to build and program DIY and how to deploy those DIY and off-the-shelf sensors, learn about the network gear and Helium Blockchain backbone networks, and how to interpret the sensor data emanating from their school gardens, which traverse Helium networks to display on their Ubidots data dashboards, schools, ministries and other related users will not seek the solution and utilize the Helium network. It is an end-to-end solution we are providing with our courses, our equipment and software sales from Helium partners (RAK, Seeed Studio and Ubidots).
This all runs across Helium networks (hotspots) to and from and in between the schools and farms and Ministries, now in 3 countries, soon to be 10 in 2022 if all goes according to our sales projections. All will be encompassed in a highly customizable Moodle Learning Management System (LMS), which through this grant work we will be setting up and modifying to handle all our new IoT curricula/courses, and Hardshare sensor arrays, and feeds from our sensors and Helium networks we are deploying. The ease of adding all these courses and other learning applications to the system will allow us to support hundreds of classrooms and new classes of users going forward. This grant will help get this done faster and more efficiently and effectively with our various OPEN teams working in tandem with these set milestone and deliverable deadlines.
This DeWi funded work will lay a strong foundation for us and show the value of our IoT solutions to our customer base. This will in turn result in the growth of the Helium network, increase data traffic through hundreds and ultimately thousands of sensor end devices to these customers, all through the catalyst of current and forthcoming IoT education applications and our Moodle LMS.
As new schools and countries come online there will be ongoing opportunities for substantial PR, from developing nations, our UN, Government Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Environment, Forestry, Telecom partners. Many use cases and academic journal articles will be written as well, further enhancing the Helium Network story, and value to societies and the future generation workforce. This is already beginning with our education workshops with STEM kits with special needs schools in Nigeria – see TV press on OPEN homepage – link below, as well as PR from RAK-Wireless also on the homepage of OPEN.
Time is critical for OPEN teams racing to ready the IoT technologies, related education programs, and business development assignments outlined below, and to leverage our large-scale international sustainable community development and school STEM education opportunities that lie before us. For these and other related IoT education and business opportunities, OPEN has assembled a world class development team, a multi-country mix of government and NGO partners, and strategic business partners including Helium, RAKwireless, Seeed Studio, Ubidots, IBM Weather Computing (EIS), IBM Edge AI/ML, and Esri GIS Mapping Company.
Total Fiat Ask:
Grant request of $50,000
Name and Address:
Email sent
Team Website and Contact Information Social:
Project Details:
Project Background
OPEN creates and manages STEM Project-Based Learning (PBL) programs that focus on local sustainable community development. Participating primary-secondary (K-12) schools, partner universities, ministries, NGOs, OPEN's interdisciplinary teams, and our IoT and related technology partners work together within developing countries and underserved communities, and link them across borders to collectively address common real-world community development challenges – such as food insecurity, water shortages/conservation, and ecosystem restoration efforts.
OPEN project manages small to large-scale projects, develops customized curricula, integrates IoT and other technologies, and offers its courses and collaborative facilities via one centralized online platform - the OPEN Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). OPEN and its education and tech partner teams offer schools ongoing teacher Professional Development (PD), and international distance learning events, and Women in Sci-Tech interview series and more.
OPEN currently has several county (akin to States in USA) and countrywide expansion projects pending in the DR Congo, Jamaica, Kenya, Hawaii, and Liberia. These projects are primarily focused on sustainable agriculture, forestry, and environment. Beginning sometime by the end of first quarter to middle second quarter 2022, we intend to deliver proposals for large-scale project funding for IoT Networks in partnership with Agriculture/ Forestry/Environment/Education Ministries in the developing countries.
Bungoma County, Kenya alone would represent a network of approximately 3,500 IoT sensors deployed on 100 schools and 100 farms agriculture research plots securely connected to cloud services by the Helium blockchain network. This would allow us to not only serve schools and expand our school network in these countries, but also to deliver Helium and partner IoT networks to the broader communities there, initially smallholder farmers.
Several small-scale IoT networks with Helium and related IoT partners are now in-place and are being tested in Southern France, Sydney, Australia, and New York City Schools, and soon also in an Australia Aboriginal community school.
These projects and related support work, curricula, and training programs currently in-process for supporting and managing these small scale clients in the coming months and years will be the foundation and template for our larger scale projects in Kenya, Liberia, the DRC, and Jamaica. Going forward in 2022 in Jamaica, in our above-listed countries in Africa, and Hawaii, this will initially include some commercial farms – for agriculture food crop and livestock monitoring, but also forestry, tree plantations, water and irrigation systems monitoring, security, air quality and climate change research applications.
As noted, in addition to Helium, other OPEN global partners now include RAKwireless, Ubidots sensor dashboard company, Seeed Studio, IBM Weather Computing (EIS), IBM Open Horizons AI/ML Edge Computing, and Esri GIS mapping companies.
Curricula and instructional videos for our OPEN-RAK STEM Lab IoT sensor kits are continuing to be developed. Focusing on environmental sensors (air quality, air temp, humidity, barometric pressure – weather stations for school gardens and local farms as well as city schools for air pollution monitoring). Our training and professional development workshops with teachers of special education schools for their students with learning disabilities – five schools in Abuja, Nigeria was a huge success. Please watch the short summary Nigeria TV news segment near the top of the OPEN homepage for teacher testimonials and closing ceremonies with US Embassy and Nigerian Education officials - https://www.oneplaneteducation.com
These OPEN-RAK STEM IoT DIY kits have also arrived at our NY City schools and soon to our Australia schools. There is growing demand for them in Hawaii schools, South Carolina, Indiana, a STEM Summer Camp in New York, and Jamaica.
These initial and forthcoming STEM IoT Sensor Kit instructional videos and curricula will also need to be further developed and along with associated curricula applications and all toi be integrated into our OPEN Moodle LMS for market readiness and teacher easy access in remote regions of developing countries. This is getting underway and will be part of the support this grant could provide.
This month curricula and instructional videos for our OPEN-RAK STEM Lab IoT sensor kits are being developed, with some beta testing coming up with teachers of special education schools for their students with learning disabilities – five schools in Abuja, Nigeria. These OPEN-RAK STEM IoT DIY kits have just been delivered to Nigeria for that project, and soon to Australia and New York City schools.
Press from the weekend of January 8th from this project - https://youtu.be/hSGWWoSbU8g
These initial and forthcoming STEM IoT Sensor Kit instructional videos and curricula will also need to be integrated into our OPEN Moodle LMS for market readiness and teacher easy access in remote regions of developing countries.
We already have market expansion opportunities for our OPEN-RAK STEM IoT Sensor kits and network services in Hawaii, NYC, Indiana, Australia, Jamaica, South Carolina, Colombia, and Trinidad (initially schools, but in some cases both schools and farm applications). These are early in the pipeline, but which we intend to close in each of those markets by the late spring/summer of 2022, as the demand for these kits and related networks are rising, in tandem with our off-the-shelf IoT sensor solutions provided by Seeed Studio.
In NYC District 10 and District 11 alone we are targeting approximately 120 schools with 8 DIY Kits/school, so 960 or more OPEN-RAK STEM Kits (which can produce 1,920 sensors), and would be connected by approximately 120 RAK Lite hotspots. In South Carolina, there would be another 120 or so schools that our sales team there would be targeting. Indiana, initially 30 schools for 2022 (out of 1,925 schools statewide), and Jamaica at the outset five schools, but through 4H and the Ministry of Agriculture there, possibly another 50 schools there in 2022-2023. Just in – a Native Hawaiian Cultural organization is interested in tracking underground water to fill an aquifer so they are looking to us for water flow sensors and to also gift OPEN-RAK STEM DIY sensor kits to local schools that visit as well. And an opportunity just surfaced to make a presentation of our STEM sensor products and services to Hawaii Dept. of Education.
For those schools who cannot initially obtain sensors and our STEM sensor kits with this grant support we will be offering a wonderful alternative to teach IoT sensor programming initially to teachers and students in schools worldwide with our Hardshare sensor array systems. This will give us a unique education service offering and this too needs to be integrated into our Moodle and adhere to the UDL methodology. This will further promote our OPEN-Helium networks and partnerships as many schools will ultimately want to obtain, deploy and network their own sensors for further studies on these topics and for students to become familiar and fluent in data analytics.
OPEN fully adheres to the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and recently, through its partner country of DR Congo, was the recipient of an award by the UN's International Telecom Union Development Bureau (ITU-D) for Digital (Learning) Transformation Centers (DTCs) there. OPEN and partner school RSETF was also awarded a US Embassy of Nigeria grant to test its new OPEN-RAK STEM DIY sensor kits with special education teachers from five schools in Abuja, Nigeria targeting students with a wide variety of disabilities.
Project Outline
For OPEN to be solidly positioned for the smaller and larger education and now commercial farm network expansion projects in the next two-to-three months, we need short-term financial assistance to advance our technology platforms, curricula and business development support services for both schools, as well as the large scale county or countrywide projects in the works.
A grant from Decentralized Wireless Alliance to support our team of dedicated professionals will expedite and ensure the delivery of these various elements of the OPEN and Helium network expansions, and to meet the growing demand for our products and services now across 15 countries, and counting. Your support will allow OPEN to further customize and advance the curriculum as it relates to our current installed base of IoT deployments in Australia, NYC, and France. It will help fast forward our pending large scale Africa, Caribbean and new Hawaii projects. Finally it will allow us to take greater advantage of our new market expansion and business development opportunities arising from the recent promising launch of our new STEM Lab DIY sensor school kits, helping increase worldwide school sales and thus OPEN-Helium school network deployments.
By supporting the completion of in process programs/curricula, and our related technology education project deliverables (e.g., integrating the student programming services offered though an OPEN-Hardshare partnership), and successfully bundling all under the one online OPEN LMS, we will further position ourselves and Helium to rapidly and successfully grow the Helium IoT network through resultant LoRaWAN and IoT sensor deployments in schools, farms, forests, waterways, and communities worldwide. All these IoT network expansion projects will also be a seedbed for the upcoming 5G network of Helium.
I. Support technical team members developing K-12 (primary-secondary level) curricula (map new IoT curricula and services to UDL framework); develop new basic IoT course on data analytics, updated OPEN's foundational education programs on sustainable agriculture and align with new IoT curricula where necessary
Heather Cowap, M.S. – Course Development & PD/Training Program Manager, OPEN
OPEN is committed to using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as the curriculum design framework for all of its sustainable community-centered education technology projects and curriculum delivered through the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) – inclusive of all students and the best means for them to access materials to learn and succeed. In service of this goal, all curriculum provided by OPEN will provide multiple means of representation of the concepts and provide clear scaffolding for skills needed to succeed and achieve the stated goals of every course and project OPEN supplies to its member schools, farms, as well as government and NGO organizations.
This requires that curriculum be provided in a clearly written and accessible format, have some initial supporting audio and video instructional material, and provide students and teachers with supporting graphic organizers, clear checklists, and other materials that can be accessed with and without digital access. The current plan for developing these materials over the coming four months is as follows:
IoT Sensor, Networks, and Data Analytics Curricula: Coordinate and support our technical team members in developing curriculum for building IoT sensors, programming sensors and instructing students/teachers on data analysis, management and collection as a part of the sensor/sustainable agriculture school and community collaborations underway. We anticipate these offerings will be of great interest to both current and new OPEN partners and member schools.
This will require video scripting, editing, re-takes, additional information clips, and related curricula support materials provided in both ePub (for accessibility) and PDF versions. Heather will also offer instructional guidance for contributing experts to ensure that UDL practices are being used in designing, recording and writing the materials to be provided to both teachers and students, ministry officials and other OPEN partners through OPEN's Moodle LMS site. The OPEN Moodle LMS is where all of our courses and materials and service offerings including IoT dashboards and Hardshare programming services all come together and reside online.
In addition, since our OPEN partners are working with students of a wide range of abilities, materials for both introductory and advanced applications need to be integrated into the curriculum. Our model follows that of the "Open Honors" philosophy, where students can choose a range of challenging material to meet their interests, (in a decision tree type of format) thereby allowing them to dive into deeper learning opportunities and provide their teachers with more challenging materials to use as they deem appropriate.
Sustainable Agriculture Project Curriculum Integrated With A Wide Variety of IoT Sensors the will run on Helium Networks: This project is currently being reorganized to facilitate teacher access to the various stages of sustainable agriculture field preparation and management in a clearer manner, and there may be additional new UDL resources developed to improve accessibility to this project by teachers, students and soon farmers for our scaling projects.
In these revised sustainable agriculture instruction books we will focus on plot preparation, composting practices, cover crops, intercropping, drainage and water storage. For teachers new to agriculture education, these instructions will be supported with background lessons on soil, water, agriculture and scientific method for research, and Neem lab organic pesticides set up.
Heather will link related sensor kit instructional videos and curricula working with our OPEN-RAK development teams and revised Sustainable Ag curricula (these two elements also includes OPEN Team Members George Newman and Ellen Baldwin – see below).
This agriculture education-related project/curricula is a complementary sustainable community development real-world based program that ties directly to the IoT Sensor and Data Analytics curriculum, and concurrently positions our solution for success for large-scale regional and countrywide projects in DR Congo, Jamaica, Liberia, Kenya, and NYC schools to start.
II. Complete Hardshare Sensor Array Design and Development for OPEN Education Applications and Integration into OPEN Moodle LMS
Scott C. Livingston, PhD, Software Developer and Founder & CEO, rerobots
Two barriers to any education program involving hardware are (1) acquiring enough hardware and (2) scheduling access such that all students have sufficient opportunity to learn. Hardshare provides a way to overcome both of these by making IoT devices available for remote access in ready-to-use development environments. Access is managed by grouping common devices and provisioning time windows during which a student gets exclusive use of a device. Hardshare previously supported development on the Helium network by hosting several Discovery Boards during the #IoTforGood contest last year (https://www.hackster.io/contests/IoTforGood). This enabled contest participation from areas outside range of a Helium hotspot, including rural Texas, India, and southeast Asia.
Hardshare enhances and accelerates OPEN by enabling regional schools to share hardware resources internally and by allowing students to develop on a great variety of sensors and LoRaWAN devices, even when their school has few kits. Concretely, the plan during the next four months is as follows:
Integrate hardshare IoT "sandboxes" into the OPEN Moodle: The hardshare client is open source (https://github.com/rerobots/hardshare). Users typically access it via a Web-based sandbox that presents the development board with a camera stream, code editor, and terminal. This is backed by an image that already has necessary toolchains installed, enabling each student to immediately build and flash their code. Sandboxes used during the #IoTforGood contest were hosted on https://rerobots.net/. To provide the essential self-contained learning experience for students with OPEN, new sandbox apps will be developed and integrated into the OPEN Moodle.
Assemble arrays of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and each type of Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors: Hardshare integration with the OPEN Moodle is only useful if there are devices that can be provisioned by it. Thus, an array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and Seeed SenseCAP sensors will be built and presented to students through the OPEN Moodle, alongside their other course materials. The array will require cameras for video streaming, USB hubs, and a host computer where the hardshare client software will be installed. This array will be the largest and most diverse IoT "device cloud", to the best of the authors' knowledge. The construction details with step-by-step instructions will be recorded and released as open source/open access to facilitate reproduction by schools who want to share their own LoRaWAN hardware.
Develop programming lessons for students to use the sensor array: The final part of making LoRaWAN development kits available in the OPEN Moodle is to write lessons that introduce students to programming. Lessons will be written to target children with little or no prior programming experience. Target technical level will be such that, after completing the lessons, students will be ready to try tutorials in the Helium documentation, for example,[ https://docs.helium.com/use-the-network/devices/development/rakwireless/wisblock-4631/platformio/
III. OPEN Moodle and Project Administrative
George Newman, CEO will manage all above team members and delivery schedules/timelines for this project. Newman will Project Manage all elements of OPEN’s current and future program and technology development work as it relates to this proposal deliverables and milestones.
During this timeframe, Newman and Ellen Baldwin will manage the team for all the deliverables set forth below under the two milestones and make sure we complete all assignments on time. OPEN Moodle Content and Administrative systems to make it ready for large-scale school and sustainable community development network applications all of which will include the strategic Helium Blockchain Network component.
Roadmap:
(Milestones 2) Finish By Feb 28th, 2022 - $25,000
# 1 Deliverable
Curricula for OPEN STEM kits, phase 1 Assembly
Summary
Oversight and alignment with school standards and UDL for Nigeria Project Special Needs Program, both instructional videos and curricula (sample instructional video and curricula for validation)
# 2 Deliverable
Integration of a hardshare sandbox into OPEN Moodle
Summary
Write template code for integrating hardshare sandboxes into OPEN Moodle. This sandbox will have a terminal, single-file code editor, and "build & flash" button, and it will be connected to a single WisBlock with GPS module attached.
Will Be Finished By February 28, 2022
# 3 Deliverable
Curricula for OPEN STEM kits, phase 2 Programming
Summary
Integrate base STEM Kits curricula and instructional videos into the OPEN Moodle architecture, and be able to monitor and interact with teachers and their students (links to Moodle section)
# 4 Deliverable
Moodle Integration of OPEN STEM kit curricula (links to Moodle section)
Summary
Added programming of OPEN Kit sensor videos, alpha version
# 5 Deliverable
Data Analytic Course, phase 1 (draft submission)
Summary
Begin data analytics initial introductory curricula (drafts/link)
# 6 Deliverable
Integration of hardshare administration into OPEN Moodle; integration of multi-file code editor based sandboxes
Summary
Integrate administrative controls of hardshare into OPEN Moodle, so teachers will be able to control students' access to devices from within Moodle (without going to separate website). Teachers will be able to create and modify sandboxes by adding example code and installing more software packages. Also, the sandbox integration of the previous milestone will be generalized to support multiple files conveniently, either by embedding a rich IDE like VS Code or by building a simpler IDE that fits better in Moodle.
END OF FIRST MILESTONE – END OF FEBRUARY
(Milestones 2) Finish By March 30th, 2022 - $25,000
# 1 Deliverable
Data Analytic Course, phase 2 (finished course materials)
Summary
Higher level, advanced applications curricula for data analytics.
# 2 Deliverable
Moodle Integration of Data Analytic Course. (link to course in Moodle)
Summary
Data Analytic Course integrate into the OPEN Moodle Architecture, and be able to interact with teachers and their students
# 3 Deliverable
Sustainable Agriculture Curricula, revision (draft)
Summary
Major revision of related sustainable agriculture curricula and instruction books
# 4 Deliverable
Hydroponic Agriculture Curricula, revision (draft)
Summary
Hydroponic curricula relating to sensor data integration and data analysis
# 5 Deliverable
Moodle Integration (link)
Summary
Integrate revised sustainable agriculture and hydroponic curricula information within OPEN Moodle
# 6 Deliverable
UDL pedagogy alignment of all offerings
Summary
For all OPEN offerings UDL pedagogy alignments
# 7 Deliverable
Array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits and Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors, accessible within OPEN Moodle (link)
Summary
Assemble small (approximately 5 boards) array of OPEN-RAK Wireless Kits. Demonstrate access to devices in array via OPEN Moodle integration. Get feedback from DeWi, other stakeholders about user experience of this array + OPEN Moodle + hardshare stack. Apply feedback from small array. Build larger array with at least 3 types of Seeed Studio SenseCAP sensors. Demonstrate access to devices in array via OPEN Moodle integration.
# 8 Deliverable
Lessons for students learning on the sensor array and for teachers managing it (materials and links possibly too)
Summary
Iterate on drafts of lessons for students to use the sensor array. Get feedback from DeWi, other stakeholders. Conclude with ready-for-publication lessons for students and onboarding materials for teachers.
# 9 Deliverable
Evaluate and report on new OPEN Moodle and course updates, and issues. (link)
Summary
Fine tune of OPEN Moodle Administrative roles and OPEN customization/branding.
END OF SECOND MILESTONE – END OF MARCH
$25,000
Team Bios
George Newman (CEO) is founder and CEO of One Planet Education Network, LLC (OPEN), a mission-driven social enterprise that develops STEM+ Project-Based Learning that joins together students and their underserved communities around the world offering community-based programs, supporting technologies and digital literacy training services. Newman has banded together a world-class team of educators, education technology consultants, and international technology organizations concentrating our collective talents to develop education programs
that focus on sustainable community development and the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our current programs key on eliminating hunger (increasing food security through regenerative agriculture programs and student research), and combating climate change through more sustainable farming practices, and the application of data-driven smart farming network systems.
Ellen Baldwin (VP Operations & Finance) manages OPEN's financial and budgetary requirements for its business, while continuing to assist in analyzing the company's overall strategic business planning. Ms. Baldwin also researches new technology applications and supports OPEN's OPEN's LMS, Esri GIS, Cloud, and general operations management. Ms. Baldwin has over 15 years of experience in the private and public accounting, strategic management research, information systems, and small business management.
Heather Cowap, MS, MEd has spent the last 15 years in the high school science classroom working with multiple grade levels and subject areas. Inspired by the goal of enticing students to be motivated and engaged in content, Heather has used Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a pedagogical structure to find and implement a number of ways for students to have choice in demonstrating knowledge of content. UDL encourages them to select from a wide variety of both technical tools and alternative ways of expression. She discovered that using technology in the classroom increased students' mastery in learning and increased their engagement in the topics covered. Discovering the need to help students manage their choices and learning group goals, Heather began using Scrum, an Agile method of project management.
Scott C. Livingston, PhD Before going to Caltech, Scott worked in a lab with bats where he designed electronics for studying echolocation beams. At Caltech and afterwards, Scott conducted research in formal methods for robotics. Realizing the potential of making these methods widely available, Scott changed focus to building tools for education and industry. This work facilitates others' work on hardware-oriented problems by (1) lowering upfront costs of using hardware and (2) accelerating progress by enabling agile development. In the past year, Scott has worked with educators at US schools and co-working centers to enable remote students to program robots and LoRaWAN devices.
Prepared December 2021-January 2022